Will There Ever be Enough Light for Lomography Redscale 100?

A fine weekend in London with nothing but blazing sun and blue skies! Highly unlikely I know, but a great chance to try out my first roll of Lomography Redscale 100 in my Holga GN 120. The results raised the question: will there ever be enough light for Lomography Redscale 100?

Excited by the prospect of that ‘evening sunset’ tone in my images (bordering on the sepia) I knew I would need a lot of sunlight to bring out the detail in the images.

I must stress here that the day (as unlikely as it sounds for London) was in fact extremely sunny and there was strong light. You’ll have to take my word on that! I experimented with single and multiple exposures. As you will see, the photos have come out relatively dark considering the setting. The photos of the London Eye were shot almost directly into the sun, with a bright blue sky behind it.

In a Holga, I would use a tripod, a shutter release cable, and the "B" setting, then operate the shutter as quickly as possible. That would give me a shutter speed of 1/15 of a second or so. It's very difficult to overexpose redscale film.

the first time I used this film I was really disappointed. Even with multiple exposures and flash all my photos were under-exposed. this was in a fairly gloomy Melbourne winter though so I blamed myself. I had slightly better luck in thailand. one phot turned out amazing yellow golden www.lomography.com/homes/freyfrey/albums/1804392-red-royal-… but mostly they were still a little bit dull looking. I think the light around the equator is really harsh, it completely washes out normal 100 film at 1/60th of a second, so maybe thats why it worked a bit better.
interesting that you guys had this problem too though, i thought it was me :)

You could try pre exposing your film by putting something like a coffee filter over it and shooting a a light source (not a flash or the sun, a plain light bulb or open sky would be ideal). Contrast will be lowered but the film should be a little easier to shoot.

@freyfrey: Don't give up. Try again, but remember to overexpose your film by at least three full stops. You can get high-contrast redscale pictures with nice yellows and even some blues, but you have to get enough light into the film. Think of the light soaking through the film. The longer it's exposed, the more it soaks through. If it only makes it through the red layer, your pictures will be very red. If you can get through to the yellow layer, you'll start seeing yellows, and oranges. If the light can get through to the blue layer, you'll start seeing greens and eventually blues.

Oh , really? I hadn't realized that when I bought the film which I used for some test shots with my DianaF+. I'm still new to Lomography and to get a feeling for it I just shot two films (redscale and b&w) on my way from/to work without paying that much attentions to the settings (there are not many anyway) and playing with double exposure at the same time. Some of the redscale pictures turned out too dark but others look ok, but then I mainly shot directly into the sun or a lamp of some kind. My impression is that this film certainly loves back light and so do I.

@daviocious: Yes. Whenever I shoot redscale I bracket my exposures if possible. It uses more film, but redscale is very inconsistent with respect to exposure an colors. That's just the nature of the beast. I'll usually shoot it at three full stops slower than the rated speed and four full stops slower than the rated box speed. So, if the box said 100 ASA, I would shoot it at 12 ASA and 6 ASA. Yes, 12 and 6. If the box says 400 I will shoot it at 50 and 25. In theory, the Lomography film is already rated to compensate for being redscaled, but I've noticed that is still needs to be overexposed for good results. I would START shooting the Lomography Redscale 100 at 50 ASA and also 25. I'm sure that it could handle being shot at 12 ASA or even 6. As I said, it's very difficult to overexpose redscaled film.

Hi all. Thanks a lot for all the feedback and suggestions. I really appreciate it!

@gvelasco: thanks for the suggestion r.e. using a Holga. My camera shelf is limited at the moment and the Holga GN is the only 120 I have. I will try out the cable release like you mention.
@freyfrey: I'm visiting Malaysia (close enough to the equator) later in the year so I will try the redscale there and see how the light goes. I fear that the dimishing European light at the moment will not provide many great opportunities this season for redscale photos :-p Although, we can always pray for the occasional sunny day!

Interesting comments. I recently shot my first roll of redscale and my photos are mostly super red, redder than anything else tagged redscale! I mostly like them though. I did some night shots, one for 90 mins, and that didn't come out AT ALL. I thought it was a gamble....
www.lomography.com/homes/schlogoat/albums/1894248-diana-f-p…

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